


Don’t Let It Bring You Down

by webcricket



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9934607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webcricket/pseuds/webcricket
Summary: One-shot written for @writingthingsisdifficult / Syn’s Monster Challenge / monster #12, the Utbard (ghost of a child who died a violent death in the forest – forces you to carry it on your back, demanding to be taken to the nearest graveyard – it gets heavier with each step you take, driving you into the ground until you die of exhaustion). Story is set during the end of season 6, after Castiel’s betrayal of the Winchesters, but before he breaks Sam’s Lucifer wall down and goes all Godstiel.





	

**_The Beginning of the End_ **

Bobby Singer considered himself a proud man. Wringing a well-worn navy trucker’s hat between gnarled fingers, eyes rimmed red and wet, he studied the pallid body laid out on the couch in his study – barely recognizable as the vivacious and lively hunter he’d mentored in recent months.

Chest raggedly rising and falling, breath shallow and rattling – each gasp this last half an hour sounded as though it might very well be your last. Bobby believed anyone else would have succumbed hours ago, but you stubbornly fought on - obstinately clinging to life in the belief your friends would find a way to save you. A spasm racked your body, followed by a long stillness before your labored respirations resumed.

The seizure triggered a harsh sniffle from the nose of the old hunter. He’d give anything to be in your place. He’d been the one to send you out into the woods alone chasing a werewolf while he was too busy aiding the Winchesters with their angelic woes to do it himself. Focus drifting up to the red warding sigils he’d ineffectively painted on the glass panes of the window, Bobby Singer downed a shot of whisky direct from the bottle and decided he wasn’t too proud a man to beg. “Castiel, if you’re listening, we need your help. It’s life or death. If you…”

“I’m here.” The familiar faint flutter of angelic feathers filled the air. Castiel strode forward, suspiciously scanning the room, distrusting the motives of his so-called friends after the incident with the holy fire. “Where are Sam and Dean?”

“They ain’t here.” Bobby spun on the trench coat clad seraph, failing to fully quell the flare of heated anger in his voice. The knowledge that Cas deceived them about Crowley’s death, that he’d gone so far as to spy on them, and was working with the demon to open purgatory the whole time despite the dangers was difficult to overlook, let alone understand, never mind forgive. Bobby paused, sucking in a sharp breath, reminding himself of the dire circumstances – reminding himself that now was not the time to be selfish – he had plenty of time to go wandering down that road, you did not. “And if they knew I was even thinking of calling you I’d be more like to be bound, gagged, and knocked on the noggin’ than standing upright.”

The angel’s blue eyes narrowed, jaw setting irascibly - he did not have the patience for games. “What do you want?”

“Like I said, your help.” Bobby stepped aside, gesturing toward your lifeless form. “Don’t look so surprised. It don’t make me happy, but I’ve got enough regrets and no more options. I’ll be damned what Sam and Dean say. I’m willing to swallow my pride if there’s a chance you can save her. She’s dyin’ and I know it ain’t her time.”

Castiel’s cool regard shifted from the aged hunter to rest upon you.

Bobby impatiently threw his hands up in the air, smashing the wadded hat cock-eyed onto his head. “You gonna make me say please?”

The angel stirred, rolling his eyes, crossing the room to hunch over the couch to examine you. Though the light of your soul faded with each beleaguered breath, Castiel clearly saw your innocence - trapped by circumstances outside your control. He understood his present predicament with the Winchesters and the old hunter could hold no bearing on his decision to help you. He placed a rough palm to your forehead, immediately sensing his inability to heal you in your present state. Nonetheless, he tried - squinting in confusion when his grace dissipated into the space around you, failing to do anything at all. “Tell me what happened.”

Bobby peered over the angel’s shoulder. “Closest we can guess is a kind of ghost sickness. She called for help yesterday, and we found her like this, collapsed. Knees sunk in the ground and half-buried.”

Cas removed his hand from your clammy skin. “Where?”

“By her car.” Bobby frowned at the obvious lack of healing success.

The angel straightened up, pivoting to sternly contemplate the hunter, seeking greater clarity. “No. Where?”

“Near a Potter’s field.” Bobby rolled his shoulders, turning away from the icy scrutiny of the angel to pour a shot of whisky into a glass.

“A graveyard?” Cas spoke with urgency, attempting to winnow down the potential causes of your plight.

Bobby held the glass to his lips and hesitated. “Yeah, is that important?”

The angel’s blue eyes again drifted to your limp figure. “When she called. What did she say?”

Want of alcohol forgotten in a glimmer of hopefulness, the hunter clanked the glass to the desk. “She said she got ambushed trying to help some kid.”

Cas’ tone edged in frustration at the hunter’s lack of specificity – the conventions of human speech patterns forever a tedious navigational task. “I need to know the exact words.”

“She said she couldn’t get him off her back.” Bobby offered. “Only Sam and Dean couldn’t find signs of anyone else out there.”

“What else?” The angel practically growled as he observed the dimming flicker of your soul.

“That she needed them to help her bury him. Something about being too heavy to carry.” Bobby’s speech rose to match the angel’s irritated tone. “They’ve been out all day retracing her steps. There ain’t no one or nothin’ out there to bury!”

Cas did not allow the hunter to see the sadness soften his aspect when he recognized what ailed you. The angel experienced a shared sympathy – both of you having tried to do the right thing only to be weighed down by the consequences of the wrong choice, unable to escape it no matter where you turned or who you trusted. “You should have called sooner.”

“You ain’t exactly on speed dial these days.” Bobby grabbed his briefly neglected glass and emptied it.

“It may be too late. But her will to live…she’s stronger than she appears.” The angel crouched, weaving his arms beneath your body. With a grunt incongruous to the enormity of his angelic strength, he lifted you into his arms, laying your head against his chest.

“What is it?” Bobby pressed a hand to his shoulder, hindering the angel’s planned flight.

“Utbard.” Cas strained to speak, knees threatening to buckle under an unobservable burden. “Call Sam and Dean. Tell them to get out of there. If I cannot save her, they risk suffering the same fate.”

Bobby stood motionless, mouth gaping.

“Now!” Cas commanded through gritted teeth, beads of sweat surfacing across his furrowed brow.

The hunter jumped, hand slipping from the angel’s shoulder as he fumbled at the buttons of his phone. “Where are you taking her?”

“To bury him.” Frame trembling in exertion, Castiel collapsed to one knee and vanished.

**_The Beginning_ **

You hated the woods. You hated running through the woods. You hated fucking werewolves running through the fucking woods. Yet another unseen twig whipped across your face, leaving a raised red welt in its wake. “Dammit!” You stopped, stomping your foot. An involuntary tear rolled down your cheek, salt stinging the freshly abraded skin. A growl a few feet ahead drew your ire. Raising your gun, steadying the grip, you squeezed the trigger – a panged yelp indicated the silver bullet found its mark. You approached the naked man cautiously, nudging his side with your foot to roll him over. The fact that he’d transformed from wolf to man told you he was dead, or at least grievously injured. But experience and a certain curmudgeonly old hunter taught you to never fully trust monsters to act as expected. Squatting over the body, his skin illuminated milky white in the full moon, blood oozing black, you inspected the bullet wound through the heart and chided the lifeless being. “You couldn’t decide to face me like 3 or 4 miles ago and save a needless romp through the woods, could you? Fucking werewolves.” At least you didn’t have to bury him way the hell out here in the middle of no-man’s land - nature would take care of the clean-up for you. Not that you would have tromped the 3 or 4 miles back to your car for a shovel anyway.

A thin voice drifted through the night air, caressing your ears.

“Hello?” You called out into the dense trees in the general direction of the sound.

“Mom? Mommy?” It was a child’s voice.

The frightened intonation tugged at the strings of your heart - no wonder the werewolf ran - he was keeping fresh meat out here. “Fucking werewolves.” You muttered again before shouting. “It’s okay, you’re safe now. Tell me where you are.”

“Help, please.” The voice answered, desperate.

“Yes, I’m here. Where are you?” Always wary of trickery, you held out your gun defensively as you entered the dense thicket.

“The river. The water. It’s so cold. Please, please, help me.” The melancholy voice mixed with the gentle murmur of moving water beyond the trees.

Emerging onto a steep muddy embankment in the bright glow of the moon, you saw a small huddled figure by the shore below. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.” Tucking the gun into your jeans, you knelt down, reaching for the child. “I’ll take you home.”

The tiny figure hissed when you touched it, swiftly using your offered limb as leverage to clamber up the bank, alighting upon your back. Sinewy arms wrapped firmly about your neck, stealing your breath.

Falling backward, you clawed at your neck, unable to break the death grip.

“Help me, please.” The voice persisted in your ear, sickly sweet. “Mommy left me. Left me under the water.”

You made choked gasps in reply, gripped by pure terror, helpless in its clutches. The white moonlight darkened. The night going pitch black.

**_The End of the Beginning_ **

You awoke face down in sticky red clay mud. Scrambling to your feet, fingers reflexively palpated the bruising of your neck, thanking no one in particular that somehow you lived. The little boy, the thing, whatever it was, must have left you after it thought you dead. Mind racing with possibilities, you plunged into the thicket, feet pounding almost soundlessly on the leaf strewn dewy forest floor. After only a couple hundred yards, you doubled over panting, calves and thighs burning. Frantically glancing around to determine if you’d been followed, quivering fingers retrieved the phone in your pocket. “Come on, come on.” You willed there to be a signal out here - one bar. Whatever this thing was required the most serious kind of backup you could muster. And since you knew they were in town working some big case with Bobby, you called Sam and Dean Winchester.

“Hey, sweetheart! Long time no see!” Dean’s jovial voice boomed over the speaker.

“Dean, I was ambushed. I need help. There’s a kid.” You pressed your lips to the phone, not wasting precious time on niceties.

“Where are you?” The elder Winchester’s tone dropped, leaden with concern.

“Woods, off I-29, Dell Rapids. North of Bobby’s. I…” A cold pressure squeezed your shoulders, icy breath brushing your ear. An immense weight on your back driving you groaning to your knees.

“Hey, Y/N. We got you. Hold on, we’re on our way.” Sam’s voice reassured you from the speaker. “Y/N?”

“Help me, or die.” The child’s voice whispered gravely. “I’m so tired. So, so tired. Put me to sleep in the hallowed ground.”

“Oh my God, Sam, Dean. He’s on me, right on my back.” You pushed to your feet, stumbling a few steps before again sinking to your knees. “I can’t get away. So heavy, too heavy. Need to bury him. Please, hurry!” Your heart sank, realizing the signal was lost when the phone beeped. Veins surging with renewed adrenaline-fueled strength, you lurched forward - the momentum carrying you to your feet, careening through the woods as fast as your aching legs would carry you.

**_The Middle_ **

Being resourceful, diligent, overly protective, and somewhat paranoid hunters, Sam and Dean low-jacked the GPS on your phone months ago when you met up with the brothers for dinner at Bobby Singer’s place.

If you’d been conscious when they used it to locate you, finding you half-buried in the dirt road beside your car twenty paces from an old graveyard, you’d have been equals parts pissed and grateful. Being unconscious, however, you had nothing to offer in the way of comments regarding the matter, let alone the power to tell the brothers you were mere feet from salvation and though well-meaning in intention, they now dragged you off to certain death.

With combined effort and a good bit of worried bickering about your current state, the brothers managed to hoist you into the Impala and drive to Bobby’s place. It required all three men to move you from the backseat to the couch in Bobby’s study.

“I know none of us is getting any younger, but what the hell?” Dean huffed, stepping away from the couch to clutch at his spasming lower back. “It’s like she’s filled with lead. That’s not normal.”

Sam stooped to gingerly settle your arms by your sides, holding the back of his hand to your forehead before tucking you beneath a few blankets to preserve warmth. He stood, brow fretfully lined. “Guys, she’s cold as death.”

The three men exchanged wordless apprehensive glances.

Bobby’s expression screwed up, mouth twisting in contemplation of seeking heavenly intervention.

Dean’s glittering jewel green eyes tapered to focus warningly on the old hunter, anticipating his thought because he also had the same first instinct. “Bobby, no. I know what you’re thinking, and don’t. We’ve already got red in the ledger on that account.”

“Yeah, we got this.” Sam knew what his brother and Bobby were considering. They couldn’t ask Castiel for assistance, not after everything that had gone down and was actively going down with Crowley and purgatory.

“What kind of a shmuck do you boys think I am?” Bobby groused, disappearing into the hall, returning a moment later with an armful of dusty books to drop on the desk. “You idjits get back out there. You said she said something wanted burying, so find it! Salt and burn it for good measure. I’ll see what I can suss up in the literature.” Bobby plopped heavily into his chair, shooing the boys out. “Get!”

“Call if you find anything.” Sam followed his brother out the door.

Bobby grumbled mockingly, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Call if you find anything. Like I wouldn’t call. Idjits.”

Of course, you and the wrathful creature clinging to your weakening body both understood there would be nothing in the woods for Sam and Dean to discover save the crow-picked maggot-infested corpse of a recently slain werewolf. The Utbard’s flesh and bones melted, bleached and washed down stream long ago to be chewed to unsalvageable bits by scavengers, leaving behind only a spiteful unsettled spirit to wait upon the shore where his mother drowned him long ago, having given birth out of wedlock - loving her reputation more than she loved her own flesh and blood.

**_The End_ **

Castiel crash landed just outside the gates of the Potter’s field. He cushioned you as well as he could with his body, both of you crumpling into a heap of tan cloth and tangled limbs the instant his feet touched ground. In the infinitesimal period of time which passed between Bobby’s study and teleportation to the graveyard, you’d ceased to breath. He leaned to hover a stubbly cheek over your parted lips. The faintest hint of warmth caressed his skin, instilling him with the vigor to carry on. Unable to lift you in his arms again, he began to drag you with great effort across the mossy soil. “I am sorry about this.” Reaching the edge of a freshly dug plot, his features knitted sorrowfully as he rolled your lifeless body into the earth. Gaze lifting, he warningly eyed the reaper cautiously approaching from the edge of the graveyard.

Recognizing the fallen angel as a potential complication to completing the task at hand, the reaper halted, peering up at the starlit sky to call for backup.

Cas grabbed a shovel, heaving moist soil to cover your body, quickly burying you beneath a mound of dirt.

“Castiel, we do not wish trouble with you.” The reaper stood squarely across from the angel, three of his associates standing as backup beyond. “This human’s soul is none of your concern.”

Cas grumbled, tossing the shovel aside, staring expectantly into the grave. “Isn’t it?”

“If you insist on interfering…” The reaper trailed off, feeling a child’s hand tightly grasp his own, noting the subtle swirling of dirt within the grave - filthy fingers suddenly jutting upward to grasp desperately at the air above.

“You were saying?” Castiel’s expression grew smug, eyes flashing to the vacant space the reaper had occupied. The angel knelt, plunging his hands into the loose earth to yank you blind, coughing and sputtering from the grave. Easing you to sit upright against a marker stone, he tenderly wiped the mud-caked hair from your face, settling a palm over your stinging eyes.

Tingling warmth surged throughout your body, delicate tendrils of angelic grace soothing your muscles, restoring your strength, clearing your eyes and lungs, healing even the most miniscule scrapes, bumps, and bruises. The gentle hand fell, and opening your eyes, you found kind sky blue ones sparkling curiously back at you.

“He’s gone.” The man’s voice rumbled softly. “And he won’t hurt anyone else.”

Tongue bobbing thick in your mouth, your throat cracked dryly, hand reflexively rising to pat his chest. “Thank you.”

He nodded, the smallest of smiles playing at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m Y/N.” You reflected and amplified his smile.

“Y/N.” He hummed, realizing he hadn’t learned your name until now. “I’m…” He faltered, the all-to familiar sound of the Impala’s tires on the gravel road disturbing the quiet evening air. His aspect glazed resignedly, chin dropping to his chest when the sweep of headlights signaled the car had turned into the cemetery gate. His eyes, churning with regret, rose to meet yours. “I’m certain your friends will explain everything.”

When you blinked, he was gone.

“Y/N! Dean, she’s here!” Sam jogged up to your side, bending to squeeze your shoulder. “You okay? What the hell happened?”

You steadily regarded the unoccupied ground in front of you. “I-I’m not sure. There was a man, he saved me.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam quirked an eyebrow.

“He had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.” You turned to the younger Winchester, pointing at the ground for emphasis. “He was just there, and then not.”

“Castiel.” Sam muttered under his breath, smacking the grave stone with his fist. “Dammit Bobby.”

“Castiel.” You tried the name on your tongue.

“What about Castiel?” Dean ambled up behind Sam, tone menacing.

“He saved me. Who is he?” You implored.

“Dangerous.” Dean grumbled darkly. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from him and any other angels that cross your path.”

“Come on.” Sam wound an arm around your waist, raising you to your feet and guiding you toward the waiting Impala. “Let’s get out of here.”

Dean crossed his arms, lips curling into a scowl, affect seething with anger – his limited human perception not discerning the dejected angel sulking just beyond the grave marker.


End file.
